


Collected FMA Drabbles

by Lanerose



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-22
Updated: 2006-09-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6349192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin.  Originally written in 2006, based on a set of themes shared by Hime1999, which she translated from Vianca's list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vianca's Angst Themes

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively called Everyone's Life Sucks in FMA. 
> 
> I've put these all in one page for my convenience, but please let me know if you think the format's really awkward and I might separate them out as chapters instead. 
> 
> Note that each separate theme is in bold and that there isn't intended to be continuity among the different theme responses, other than they're all FMA based. (Really, the completely different pairings from the first drabble to the second should tip this, but it doesn't hurt to be clear.)

  
_**The Two of Us** _

“You know it can’t be like this.” Roy said, gently brushing away the lone tear that had broken through Riza’s defenses. She nodded, biting her lip and glancing away. “Not right now, not when there’s still so much to be done for the country. We can’t-“

“I know, sir.” She replied, breaking away from him suddenly. Her face had regained its hardened veneer. Riza marched quickly to the door. After opening it, she looked back at him. “The two of us both have work to do, Colonel Mustang.”

“Yes.” He replied, staring as the door closed behind her. “We do.”

 

 

 

  
_**The Longing Back Then** _

“You waited…?” He asked incredulously, golden eyes wide as they met his lover’s. “Even when you thought I was dead…?”

The man’s face betrayed him to Ed faster than anything else could have. The blonde strode forward and punched the dark-haired man before grabbing him in a tight hug.

“You idiot!” Ed scolded, voice filled with emotion.

“I promised you I would wait.” Roy replied, shaking his head. “You promised you’d come back. Did you think I’d give you any excuse not to follow through on your end of the bargain?”

“No…” Ed answered, smiling. “I guess not, you bastard.”

 

 

 

  
_**Scars** _

She remembered far too clearly the time when the mark hadn’t been there. The time when her life had consisted of nothing more than most people’s lives did. Waking. Working. Eating. Sleeping. Loving. Being loved.

It was gone now. She had never been naïve enough to believe that she could get it back, had known from the first that everything she had once had was behind her forever now.

That didn’t stop her from wishing it otherwise.

“Lust?” A voice called from downstairs.

“Coming, Gluttony.” She said, candlelight flickering on the mark on her chest as she turned to leave.

 

 

 

  
_**Unreachable Back** _

It had a bitter sort of irony. As a child, Alphonse had always been fond of throwing his arms over his head and letting them droop where they pleased. It had felt so good to stretch that little bit.

Mother had never liked it. She’d laugh at them. Gently tug their arms back into place. Remind them that gentlemen stood with their arms hanging properly. Tell them to remember next time, knowing they’d forget.

The metal joint at his elbow froze his forearm awkwardly over his head, and he reluctantly returned it to his side.

Mother always got her wishes.

 

 

 

  
_**Promise** _

He hadn’t believed it at first. Couldn’t. His brother wouldn’t do something that stupid, not after everything they’d been through. He wouldn’t, right?

The colonel had watched the desperation in his eyes that morning at the hospital. Maybe the bastard had even tried to comfort him. He wasn’t sure anymore.

“The military is, of course, interested in doing some research on the subject.” Mustang had said, staring at him. “However, you should know that you will not be held accountable for his actions.”

“No.” Ed replied bitterly, his attention focused upon his flesh and blood right hand. “Not by you.”

 

 ** _Cold Chain_**  
  
Alchemists originally intended to work for the public good. At least, that’s what they liked to tell themselves. How being able to turn lead into gold, or to bring back the dead and cause suffering through overpopulation was supposed to do anyone any good, no one had ever explained to her. Still, she had believed in that code – had taught them to believe it.  
  
Staring at his watch, his leash, Izumi wanted to be angry with him. She couldn’t, though. It was a pity, she thought, that she understood what it was to forsake the world for a loved one.

 

 **** _ **Memory**_  
  
In a far off place, in a distant time, he was sure he had been happy. In his dreams, he could see a beautiful woman with light brown hair wrap her arms around him and tell him that she loved him. He would smile, and kiss her.  
  
He remembered that happiness. Remembered it with a sharpness and clarity which should have faded but somehow never had, even in all this time.  
  
Standing on the far side of the Gate, certain he would never return home again, Hohenheim couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the Dante he had known.

 

 ** _Unfulfilled Heart_**  
  
“You better not break it again!” She yells at him as he walks into the distance, leaving her alone again. Nothing new there, they always left her in the end. Knowing that they just as invariably returned to her was cold comfort.  
  
They always came back, it was true. Just like it was true that they always came back with new scars.  
  
Winry could only wonder when the day that the latest addition to their scars would return them to her in wooden boxes would come. Given their reckless behaviour, she was bitterly sure it would arrive entirely too soon.

 

 ** _Hourglass_**  
  
In this empty place between, he has nothing but time. She has locked him here, trapped without any of the things to which he has become accustomed. There is nothing to eat, no one to talk to; it cannot even be said to be hot or cold, merely the absence of both. His more fatalistic side acknowledges that at least she gave him the good weather he’d been bugging her to create.  
  
He does have time, though. As Greed feels the seconds slip away, hording the sensation as best he can, he creates a second possession: his plans for revenge.

 

_**Not Knowing** _

She knows that she is dying. The memory of her mother’s illness remains too clear in her mind even after all this time for her not to know. The slight cough, the days when she can’t breathe freely, the steadily increasing pain; it all points to one inevitable conclusion. She knows it down to her bones.

  
She doesn’t know what will happen afterward, though. She at least had her father; her children are not so lucky. He was a good man, she told herself, and would return once he knew. They would have him then.  
  
Until then?  
  
Trisha didn’t know.

 

 _ **Bitter Cry**_  
  
Ed thinks that he doesn’t know about the nights when it finally becomes too much, about the nights when his older brother can’t control the misery that wells up inside him and it breaks free. Then again, Ed still doesn’t know that he has not slept since the night they attempted to bring their mother back. For a genius, Ed isn’t always very bright.  
  
So Ed cries, and Alphonse lets him. It’s not that he pities his brother. No, Alphonse doesn’t have any pity to spare.  
  
After all, the most bitter tears are the ones he is incapable of crying.  
 ****

_**“Goodbye”**_  
  
Pinako doesn’t say goodbye to Ed and Al when they leave. Nor does she ever say it to Winry as the girl comes and goes from visiting those two. In fact, the old woman can only remember two times that she has ever used that word.  
  
“Goodbye, Mother.” her children had said, rushing off to save lives.  
  
“Goodbye, take care!” she had replied.  
  
“Goodbye, Pinako.” the tall blond man had said.  
  
“Goodbye, Hohenheim.” she had answered.  
  
Pinako didn’t want to know what would happen if she ever uttered that word for a third time. Twice had been more than enough.

 

 ** _Hand in Hand_**  
  
Al remembers little of the time following their failed transmutation. Only a few impressions linger. Ed’s presence is the clearest – always beside him, ready to stand before him and protect him.  
  
Beginning his journey anew, Al raises his arm out the window of the train. The invisible hand of the wind wraps itself tightly around his own flesh and blood hand as he makes himself a promise that the next time they meet, they will not leave one after another, but side by side.  
  
Until that day comes, the ghostly touch of the wind is all that he will know.

 

 _ **The Courage to Shake off That Hand**_  
  
When he wakes up in her room, he knows immediately that he should not be there. It’s not that he hasn’t woken up in a woman’s room before (he has) or that he doesn’t want to be there (he does, more than anything), but that he knows it isn’t safe. They will hurt her because of him.  
  
“Colonel! Be still!” Her voice commands him sternly when he tries to sit up, but he can hear the tenderness in it. Her hand is warm as she pushes him flat.  
  
Cursing the consequences of his weakness, Roy drifts slowly back to sleep.

 

 _ **Beloved**_  
  
Loving a sibling has always been taboo. In Ishbala, those who married a man’s brothers became that man’s sisters, and to that man it forever became taboo to want more than a fraternal relationship with that woman.  
  
Scar sometimes thinks having already committed one taboo is the only thing that kept him sane when he realized he must commit more and greater atrocities. He knew even as he committed greater atrocities that some day he must face his crimes.  
  
Having to watch the creature that wears his sister-lover’s skin work evil, however, is almost too great a price to pay.

 

  
_**Lullaby** _

He had watched as she had excitedly written down the songs she intended to sing to their children. He was proud of her, his multi-talented wife, who would listen to no one when they tried to tell her that it would be better if she didn’t try something. Her independence was one of the things that had drawn him to her.

Watching her now, singing the last lullaby she had written at the funeral of their only son, Seig wondered if Izumi’s talents included the strength to survive, or at least the strength to let him help her let go.

 

 

_**Not There** _

He wasn’t there the first time that his youngest son spoke, or walked. Nor was he there on his children’s first day of school. He missed more birthdays than he attended, as well as more anniversaries. Sometimes he would call. If he remembered, he would even try to send a card or a present, something for them to remember him by. He regretted missing their first transmutation, wished that he had demonstrated for his sons, and that they hadn’t had to puzzle it out themselves.

Meeting Ed again assured Hohenheim that the one who regretted those absences most was himself.

 

 

_**Wrist** _

She had kicked herself the entire train ride and then some. He had no idea, thought it was his own fault. No doubt he had been doing something stupid and dangerous when it gave out, but that didn’t make it any less her fault that it broke in the first place. Now, he was in the hospital.

“Sorry about making you come here, Winry.” He apologized as she inserted the missing screw that had caused the failure into his automail wrist. She didn’t answer, though  _she_  should have been asking  _his_  forgiveness.

Ed had almost died because of her mistake.

 

 

_**Someone To Lean Back To** _

Colonel Roy Mustang was first and always an alchemist. As such, he worked for the good of the people, doing his best to support them and to bring them forward. He leads the people under his command with skill and finesse, drawing out their best qualities as fire strengthens steel. He is, by all counts, someone to be trusted and relied upon.

Now, watching the younger man, reeking of bar smoke and staggering aimlessly home on unsteady legs, weave back and forth in a partner-less dance, Lieutenant Maes Hughes wishes only that Roy would rely on someone else for once.

 

 

_**Kiss** _

Sometimes late at night, when he’s lying awake in bed and nothing else is intruding upon his mind, he remembers. Her hands slide through his hair gently, soothing away a long and tiring day. She gently touches his cheek, smiling at him.

“Sleep well.” She says, turning out the light. She pulls the blanket tightly around him and Al, pressing goodnight kisses to their foreheads. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ed doesn’t believe in heaven, but he likes to think that if it did exist somewhere, then it would have the sweet voice and tender goodnight kiss he misses.

 

 

_**Sky** _

Alfons coughs, choking on the smoke the rocket expels as it lifts off, headed into the clear blue sky. It soars overhead, flying effortlessly. He marvels for a moment – man can make things fly. One day, man will be able to make himself fly. Human kind is going higher, expanding into an as yet unknown universe. Someday, he may even go all the way to the stars, to touch and caress them as their light has done to the Earth for so long.

Alfons coughs, choking on his body’s rebellion, and doubts that he will live to see that day.

 

 

_**A Place To Sleep** _

She had taken shelter in the alleyway, finding a large cardboard box to duck into for some protection from the rain. The chilly night air was slowly turning her soaked hair to ice, sending shivers up and down her spine.

“Brother…” She heard a voice call softly. A pair of dark boots came into view, and a loud cracking sound filled the air, shaking the world around her. She jumped, frightened, only to land on something surprisingly soft and dry.

“That’s all we can do for it, Al.”  

The kitten drifted off as the first replied softly, “I understand, Brother.”

 

 

_**White Lies** _

Trisha often tells herself that her husband will be home soon. She can imagine him coming over the mountain even now, stopping to spend the night a mere day’s walk away. He will start to travel at first light, perhaps stopping to help an injured animal or play a game with a child in the forest. He will arrive home with that soft smile on his face, just in time to eat dinner.

The next night, Trisha carefully puts away the leftovers and begins to tell herself anew that surely  _tomorrow_  will be the day he comes back to her.

 

 

_**Bare Foot** _

When he wakes up, the first thing that he can see is his feet. They look different. Not that they look different from what he remembers – he doesn’t actually remember what they should have looked like – but rather that they look different from one another. One is light and pale, like the rest of him. The other is darker, a rosier skin tone.

When he notices that one of his arms doesn’t quite match, either, and that the two limbs that mismatch his body match one another perfectly, he jealously wonders who has the limbs that should have been his.

 

 

_**Beautiful Thing** _

Lust is dazzling. The first time Gluttony sees her, all he can think is that it would be wrong to eat her. He can’t remember ever having thought that before.

He knows what he is. His vices are etched into his very skin, covering his bones with added bulk more obvious even than his ouroboros tattoo. He is unsurprised that she feels nothing for him.  

She does surprise him one way, though.

“Come, Gluttony.” She says, and her voice is liquid honey. It oozes through his ears, filling a place he hadn’t realized was empty.

She lets him follow her.

 

 

_**Darkness** _

Cain Fuery glanced back and forth between Breda and Havoc for what had to have been the twentieth time that day. Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye had been engaged in covert conversation for the better part of an hour before the Lieutenant had stormed out. Hawkeye didn’t usually storm anywhere.

When a small child with golden-blond hair showed up two weeks later, the group of Mustang underlings could tell by the set of Hawkeye’s jaw that she disapproved of whatever Mustang had planned.

They only wished they knew what his plans were, so they could help whoever deserved the support.

 

 

_**Blurry Eyes** _

Maes had never seen the world clearly. Glasses had been part of his life since childhood, a constantly needed companion to keep things in focus. His camera obsession had come from his glasses – lens focusing images fascinated him.

More fascinating, though – the lens weren’t working. He had seen Ross’s impersonator die. Whoever it wasn’t shouldn’t be alive. Shouldn’t be standing before him. Shouldn’t be creating a mole where there hadn’t been one before. Shouldn’t be…

Maes blinked to clear his vision, but his eyes never opened. The focusing power of his glasses couldn’t help him.  

He slumped to the ground.

 

 

_**Rainy Night** _

Riza bites her lip as she stares at the approaching clouds. They speak ominously of rain, of the water which can destroy her colonel’s fire in an instant. On nights like this, he needs someone by his side, to guard his back and to make sure that no harm comes to him. He never did have the sense to stay indoors when the weather took a turn for the worse.

Objectively, it doesn’t matter anyway. He is safely off in parts unknown, has been since he learned of Edward’s disappearance.

She isn’t surprised that knowing that makes the storm worse.

 

 

_**Countdown** _

“Five!”

Roy closes his eyes.

“Four!”

He regrets not being able to draw the country from its path to war. The Fuhrer’s decisions will destroy them, but there is nothing Roy can do any more.

“Three!”

He prays that those under his command will be kept safe by his plea agreement. Nothing will force the government to obey it after he is gone, and relying on honor is a dubious choice.

“Two!”

He hopes Edward and Alphonse are all right, wherever they are.

“One!”

He wonders if Riza will forgive him.

BAM!

There is pain, and the world goes black.

 

 

_**Eternity** _

Alone in the underground city, Ed drew the only thing that came to mind. When the transmutation circle had finally formed on the ground, he stared at it for only a moment before dipping a finger in a nearby pool of his blood. With his flesh and blood right hand, he drew the design upon his chest.

He stared at it. Would Al want this?

Did it matter what Al wanted?

No, not now. At the end of all things, it didn’t matter.

Contented, the Fullmetal Alchemist nodded to himself as he activated the array and stepped forward into eternity.


	2. Bonus FMA Angst Drabbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not part of my fulfillment of Vianca's angst theme set, but also angsty FMA drabbles, so I'm putting them here.

_**Artifice**_  
  
She watches as he lays back upon the table, his eyes closing anticipatorily. He’d broken it again, damaged it to where she couldn’t fix it, couldn’t do anything. He hadn’t explained; she hadn’t bothered to ask.  
  
Instead, she had gone to work.  
  
The new automail she’d designed this time was leagues above anything available anywhere else. She knew it; he knew it, just as they knew her reputation grew because he needed it replaced so often. Because he needed it at all.  
  
As they threw the switches and his face contorted, she had only one regret –  
  
His pain remained.

 

**_Residual_**  
  
His office wasn’t any emptier than it had been the previous day. Intellectually, Roy knew that. Knew that nothing had changed, that the mountains of paperwork remained, that the light still fell across the chairs opposing his desk just so, that everything was in its proper place.  
  
Funny, how knowing it didn’t leave him sure.  
  
The door to his office remained slightly ajar. Hawkeye’s gun sat prominently on her desk, strategically placed in the only spot where he’d see it there. The scent of smoke from Havoc’s cigarettes still drifted on the afternoon air.  
  
It wasn’t the same, though.  
  
Ed wasn’t there.


End file.
